“But you’re right, our people do work miracles in that department.” He put it down. “All right. It has to be SOE rejects, then.”
Flick felt a surge of triumph. He was going for it. Percy went on, “But assuming you can find enough French- speaking girls, will it work? What about the German guards? Don’t they know the cleaners?”
“It’s probably not the same women every night-they must have days off. And men never notice who cleans up after them.”
“I’m not sure. Soldiers are generally sex-hungry youngsters who pay great attention to all the women with whom they come into contact. I imagine the men in this chateau flirt with the younger ones, at least.”
“I watched these women entering the chateau last night. and I didn’t see any signs of flirting.”
“Still, you can’t be sure the men won’t notice the appearance of a completely strange crew.”
“I can’t be certain, but I’m confident enough to take the chance.”
“All right, what about the French people inside? The telephone operators are local women, aren’t they?”
“Some are local, but most are brought in from Reims by bus.”
“Not every French person likes the Resistance, we both know that. There are some who approve of the Nazis’ ideas. God knows, there were plenty of fools in Britain who thought Hitler offered the kind of strong modernizing government we all needed-although you don’t hear much from those people nowadays.”
Flick shook her head. Percy had not been to occupied France. “The French have had four years of Nazi rule, remember. Everyone over there is hoping desperately for the invasion. The switchboard girls will keep mum.”
“Even though the RAF bombed them?”
Flick shrugged. “There may be a few hostile ones, but the majority will keep them under control.”
“You hope.”
“Once again, I think it’s a chance worth taking.”
“You still don’t know how heavily guarded that basement entrance is.”
“That didn’t stop us trying yesterday.”
“Yesterday you had fifteen Resistance fighters, some of them seasoned. Next time, you’ll have a handful of dropouts and rejects.”
Flick played her trump card. “Listen, all kinds of things could go wrong, but so what? The operation is low- cost, and we’re risking the lives of people who aren’t contributing to the war effort anyway. What have we got to lose?”
“I was coming to that. Look, I like this plan. I’m going to put it up to the boss. But I think he will reject it, for a reason we haven’t yet discussed.”
“What?”
“No one but you could lead this team. But the trip you’ve just returned from should be your last. You know too much. You’ve been going in and out for two years. You’ve had contact with most of the Resistance circuits in northern France. We can’t send you back. If you were captured, you could give them all away.”
“I know,” Flick said grimly. “That’s why I carry a suicide pill.”
CHAPTER 8
GENERAL SIR BERNARD MONTGOMERY, commander of the 21st Army Group, which was about to invade France, had set up improvised headquarters in west London, at a school whose pupils had been evacuated to safer accommodation in the countryside. By coincidence, it was the school Monty himself had attended as a boy. Meetings were held in the model room, and everyone sat on the schoolboys’ hard wooden benches-generals and politicians and, on one famous occasion, the King himself.
The Brits thought this was cute. Paul Chancellor from Boston, Massachusetts, thought it was bullshit. What would it have cost them to bring in a few chairs? He liked the British, by and large, but not when they were showing off how eccentric they were.
Paul was on Monty’s personal staff. A lot of people thought this was because his father was a general, but that was an unfair assumption. Paul was comfortable with senior officers, partly because of his father, partly because before the war the U.S. Army had been the biggest customer for his business, which was making educational gramophone records, language courses mainly. He liked the military virtues of obedience, punctuality, and precision, but he could think for himself, too, and Monty had come to rely on him more and more.
His area of responsibility was intelligence. He was an organizer. He made sure the reports Monty needed were on his desk when he wanted them, chased those that came late, set up meetings with key people, and made supplementary inquiries on the boss’s behalf.
He did have experience of clandestine work. He had been with the Office of Strategic Services, the American secret agency, and had served under cover in France and French-speaking North Africa. (As a child he had lived in Paris, where Pa was military attach‚ at the U.S. Embassy.) Paul had been wounded six months ago in a shoot-out with the Gestapo in Marseilles. One bullet had taken off most of his left ear but harmed nothing other than his looks. The other smashed his right kneecap, which would never be the same again, and that was the real reason he had a desk job.
The work was easy, by comparison with living on the run in occupied territory, but never dull. They were planning Operation Overlord, the invasion that would end the war. Paul was one of a few hundred people in the world who knew the date, although many more could guess. In fact, there were three possible dates, based on the tides, the currents, the moon, and the hours of daylight. The invasion needed a late-rising moon, so that the army’s initial movements would be shrouded in darkness, but there would be moonlight later, when the first paratroopers jumped from their planes and gliders. A low tide at dawn was necessary to expose the obstacles Rommel had scattered on the beaches. And another low tide before nightfall was needed for the landing of follow-up forces. These requirements left only a narrow window: the fleet could sail next Monday, June 5, or on the following Tuesday or Wednesday. The final decision would be made at the last minute, depending on the weather, by the Allied Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower.
Three years ago, Paul would have been desperately scheming for a place in the invasion force. He would have been itching for action and embarrassed at being a stay-at-home. Now he was older and wiser. For one thing, he had paid his dues: in high school he had captained the side that won the Massachusetts championship, but he would never again kick a ball with his right foot. More importantly, he knew that his organizational talents could do more to win the war than his ability to shoot straight.
He was thrilled to be part of the team that was planning the greatest invasion of all time. With the thrill came anxiety, of course. Battles never went according to plan (although it was a weakness of Monty’s to pretend that his did). Paul knew that any error he made-a slip of the pen, a detail overlooked, a piece of intelligence not double-checked-could kill Allied troops. Despite the huge size of the invasion force, the battle could still go either way, and the smallest of mistakes could tip the balance.
Today at ten a.m. Paul had scheduled fifteen minutes on the French Resistance. It was Monty’s idea. He was nothing if not a detail man. The way to win battles, he believed, was to refrain from fighting until all preparations were in place.
At five to ten, Simon Fortescue came into the model room. He was one of the senior men at MI6, the secret intelligence department. A tall man in a pin-striped suit, he had a smoothly authoritative manner, but Paul doubted if he knew much about clandestine work in the real world. He was followed by John Graves, a nervous-looking civil servant from the Ministry of Economic Warfare, the government department that oversaw SOE. Graves wore the Whitehall uniform of black jacket and striped gray pants. Paul frowned. He had not invited Graves. “Mr. Graves!” he said sharply. “I didn’t know you had been asked to join us.”
“I’ll explain in a second,” Graves said, and he sat down on a schoolboy bench, looking flustered, and opened his briefcase.
Paul was irritated. Monty hated surprises. But Paul could not throw Graves out of the room.
A moment later, Monty walked in. He was a small man with a pointed nose and receding hair. His face was deeply lined either side of his close-clipped mustache. He was fifty-six, but looked older. Paul liked him.
Monty was so meticulous that some people became impatient with him and called him an old woman. Paul
